A Breakthrough in Ukraine?

Something happened in Ukraine a week ago that didn’t make the news here, but which Americans should care about.  In Kiev, President Viktor Yanukovych pardoned former Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko, who had been convicted of “abuse of power” in 2010. This is a step toward completion of a stalled European Union-Ukraine Association Agreement which would open up EU markets to Ukrainian exports -- a great potential boon to the country’s economy. Close Ukrainian ties to the EU can also be seen as a proxy for stronger, broader ties between the United States and this strategic country that lies between the West and Russia. Ever since its independence in 1991, Ukraine has sought to balance relations with the two. The country’s Ukrainian-speaking western half has long related to its western neighbors, while its Eastern half has related to Russia and many of its residents are Russian speakers. (Yanukovych is from the east.) The EU and Ukraine initialed their Association Agreement in March last year. Four months later they initialed the important free-trade agreement. The EU is holding off final signing because of what it considers anti-democratic tendencies of the Yanukovich government. It wants progress by Ukraine in preventing “selective” justice. The pardon of Lutsenko, along with former Ecology Minister Heorhiy Filipchuk, represents an important first step. One more that might well lead to a signing of the documents would be the release of Yanukovych rival, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. She was convicted in August 2011 of “abuse of office.” So far, Yanukovich has declined to release her, perhaps because he thinks she would be a most formidable rival in his 2015 reelection campaign. He and his government have not yet concluded that the considerable benefits of the EU agreement outweigh the possible political cost at the polls. Recently, amid reports of her declining health, Tymoshenko was moved to a prison hospital. This might give Yanukovych the opportunity...